


With Love

by Mendeia



Series: What Beyond (The Temple Steps Alight) [7]
Category: The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, The Sentinel
Genre: Family Angst, Gen, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 14:39:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4750058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mendeia/pseuds/Mendeia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blair comes to a decision about Naomi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Love

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all!
> 
> This isn't the happiest of oneshots, but I think it is necessary. Sometimes, the only way to move forward is to draw lines in the sand behind you and never look back.
> 
> (By the way, I don't mean to bash Naomi. I really don't. But even wonderful people may not be safe in every situation for everyone. And you gotta admit, Blair's not wrong about the risk she poses.)
> 
> Enjoy!

Blair was taking a walk.

The fact that it was below 50 degrees outside and periodically the clouds decided the time had come to spit on mankind had not dissuaded him. If nothing else, that was proof enough of his inner turmoil. No, not turmoil – not exactly. Disquiet, maybe.

Though he could have gotten in his car and driven up to SELF to have some time in the woods, Blair had opted instead to make for the waterfront. The long boardwalks along the ocean were deserted in the downright yucky weather, giving him an endless plain of water and wood and stormy sky and shuttered storefronts for company. He hunched into his jacket but didn't bother to pull up the hood. The spray of ocean and sometimes rain was a cool reminder that kept him from vanishing too far into his own head.

He'd been out there more than an hour when he heard a familiar footstep behind him. Blair didn't look up, didn't even wonder. In a way without words, he knew his Sentinel had come for him.

But Jim was patient and simply followed, keeping a few yards back from Blair as they moved over the wooden boardwalk, crisscrossing the same path Blair had trod twice already. This time, Blair's feet carried him out onto an empty pier. He leaned against the wet railings and stared at the ocean.

"It's my mom," he said softly.

Jim appeared at his side, resting his hands on the rough, peeling rail close enough that they could have bumped elbows with only a slight movement, but he let the space stand between them and said nothing.

"She hasn't called me since before that thing with Sunshine and Jaga and the Quests in Borneo. I got letters, of course. I always get letters. She knew I forgave her for the whole dissertation mess, but I think she was afraid to face it." He huffed a laugh. "She'll go where angels fear to tread, straight into the heart of an untamed jungle or a warzone or a third-world slum, and she'll never blink at the danger to herself. But recrimination? Shame? She's not so brave around them."

Jim nodded, waiting.

"In all her letters for more than a year, she wrote about how important trust is, and how it's something all three of us struggle with. You didn't trust me, even before everything fell apart, and when it did, you didn't believe me that I wasn't out to get you. And she didn't trust me to know what I needed and wanted. She thought I was starry-eyed at the allure of the forbidden – a cop's world – and that she knew best how to help me find my way. She also trusted the wrong person with the diss."

"What about you?" Jim asked quietly. "You said all three of us."

"Mom thinks I trust too much, too soon. She didn't know why I put my safety in your care, even after you turned on me. She forgave you, of course. She forgives everyone. But that doesn't mean she'll ever go back to someone who hurts her. 'Detach with love.' She forgives and moves on and nobody gets another chance. But me – I stayed with you. I stayed after getting hurt again and again. She couldn't understand that. Naomi is always running _to_ enlightenment and peace, but she's also always running _from_ pain."

"You trusted her, too," Jim said.

"Yeah, I did. And she made a mistake. It was why she was so scared she'd ruined everything forever. If it had been anyone else doing that to her, she'd have smiled, told them it was all right – and meant it – and left. Even me. If I did that to her, she'd forgive me and she'd love me in a theoretical 'love the whole of humanity' kind of way, but she'd never let me back in. She expected me to do that to her. For a long time, she didn't really believe that I hadn't."

"Why didn't you?" Jim asked, honestly curious. He'd had to learn to forgive and keep holding onto people – and it had been Blair who had taught him how – but he was more like Naomi this way. If Blair really _had_ betrayed him, nothing would have won his trust back.

"'Cause she's my mom, you know?" Blair shrugged. "She's all good intentions and mixed results. She throws herself into an undercover operation without a second thought even though she can't stand any part of it. She helps people out and they help her in return and she never realizes she's being taken advantage of until she can't ignore it anymore. She's smart about things like drugs and abuse and violence, but not about pain. She's like a ship on the sea. She avoids the storms because she doesn't want to tip over. She doesn't know how to right herself and bail out the water and stay afloat if she loses her way."

"You forgave her because you had to?"

"No, I forgave her because I wanted to. Because I wanted to spare her the pain of my refusal to forgive her. And because she's my mom. She loves me. She makes mistakes all the time, but she loves me."

"Chief," Jim took a deep breath. "You don't need to hang onto people just because they love you. There's lots of people who care about you that won't make so many mistakes."

"I know that. And if it were anybody else, even if I forgave them, I might pull a Naomi and keep them out for life rather than risk a repeat of everything. But…she's my mom." It started to rain and Blair was glad – it helped him pretend his face's wetness came from the sea and the sky instead of himself. "I don't even know why. I just…can't help it."

"Like you can't help but forgive me when I let you down," Jim said quietly.

"Kind of." Blair looked up at the darkening sky. "But with you, it's different. Forgiving you, continuing to love you, it's easy. It's right. It's what I want. You make mistakes and I just let them go. Or, I try to." He quirked a small smile. "Sometimes stuff lingers and we find it later."

"Like finding out about Sentinel sickness?"

"Yeah. But even then, I had already forgiven you. I just put away the pain until we had to bring it out and look at it again. It wasn't hard to keep being your partner in spite of those feelings. Maybe it's because I'm your Guide. Can you hate your leg if it misses a step and you bash your head on the ground? You feel the hurt and you pay for it, but you don't cut off your leg. You don't blame it for the pain. The pain is just a consequence of having an imperfect leg in an imperfect world."

"I'm still sorry, Blair," Jim said, roughly and gently at once. "For all of it."

"I know, man. I know." Blair still had not turned from his study of what was in front of him or above him. He dropped his eyes to the waves running under the pier. "We're fine, Jim. We've been fine for a long time. It's water under the bridge, man. Or the dock. Whatever."

Jim smiled at the attempt.

"But with mom…it's different. I forgave her. That's not the problem. She was easy to forgive for the past."

When he stopped, Jim spoke into the silence. "Why did she call, Chief?"

"She wants to come visit again. And I wouldn't mind seeing her if it was just us. If we met at a place far away from Cascade and she told me her stories and I let them fill me up and I could be myself and she would be Naomi and we wouldn't touch the ground that got torn up when she was here last."

"Why don't you just do that then?" Jim suggested.

Blair shook his head. "That's just avoidance. I have to decide – right now. Do I let her back into our lives here? I'm not talking about SELF and the Quests and all that stuff. It's much more immediate. Do I let her into the loft? Do I let her back into my life where I'm sure she can find a way to uproot something or make a mess again?"

He sighed.

"It's like…if I open the door of the loft, I'm opening a door inside, too. I'm giving her space to walk inside and kick something that hurts. She wouldn't mean to do it. It's just who she is. Her own special variant on the Sandburg Zone." He snorted. "Where I draw trouble and terrorists and criminals, mom runs into people's fears and secret aches and brings them to the surface. It's fine when you don't have something to lose from the experience – it can even be liberating."

"So if you actually let her back into your life, you're opening yourself up to her hurting you again," Jim finished.

"And not just me. You too. She hurt both of us. I forgave her, but I'm not eager to try it again."

"Sandburg, it won't happen that way again. We're…different. You know I wouldn't turn my back on you, no matter what your mom came up with to throw at us."

"I know. But that doesn't mean she can't hurt us."

Jim thought for a moment. "You said your mom is afraid of pain. But aren't you just doing the same thing? Trying to avoid your own pain?"

"Yeah, I guess I am," Blair nodded to himself. "If I let her in now, I'd be doing it for her sake, so she knows I really did forgive her and so everything could be all right between us again. But there'd always be a risk…"

"There is always a risk when other people get involved," Jim said. "It's up to you if it's a risk worth taking. Some are and some aren't. And it doesn't stay constant, either. What's untenable today might be easy tomorrow."

"Says the guy who knows about risk," Blair smiled grimly.

"Says the guy who learned about letting people in," Jim corrected. "So the question is whether or not you actually want a relationship with her."

"Of course I do," Blair said automatically. Then he sighed. "She talked about how you and she both broke my trust but I kept on trusting anyway and she admires that in me. She doesn't know that it isn't quite true anymore. I trust my mom to be herself. I trust her to mean well. I trust her to do what she thinks is right. I just don't know if I trust her with any part of me that bruises."

"All of you bruises, Blair," Jim said softly. "It's one of your biggest secrets. No matter how tough you seem or how many bad guys you snarl at or how many thuggy Sentinels you talk down, there's nothing in you that doesn't feel it all happen. Stuff looks like it bounces off, but it doesn't."

"No, it doesn't," Blair dropped his head, his hair hanging over his face in a thick, wet curtain. "I don't think it really just bounces off anybody. Some people just get good at hiding bruises from others, or maybe even themselves."

Jim longed to argue that point. He was fairly certain there were people in the world that didn't bruise so easily, so readily, and didn't care. That his Guide was unusual. But that argument was for another time. Instead, he listened to his partner's steady heartbeat and waited for him to go on.

"I can't help but forgive my mom. I can't help but want her in my life. But it isn't easy. She'll come in on a whirlwind and leave the same way, and she might not ever think too hard about the broken pieces I'm sweeping up. Not because she's callous. She's just…she doesn't let pain happen to her too often. She stays away from it. She's always left rather than pick up some frayed ends and try to stitch them back together."

Blair actually tipped his head a bit, not enough for one blue eye to pierce the curtain of his hair, but enough for Jim to know he was being considered. "You know, you're a lot like her that way."

"You think that's what I do? I leave instead of sticking it out and cleaning up my messes?" The questions weren't heated, but said softly.

"More that you pretend the whole thing never happened. At least, you used to. How long were we roommates before I ever even knew you had a brother, or a dad?"

Blair's head came back up and he shook back the wet curls to stare at the sea again. "We're all running from pain, Jim. We just do it differently. You pretend it never happened and bury it so far down you're almost right. Mom forgives and moves on and lets everything go like wind through the trees, and she never lets herself get snagged if she can help it."

"What do you do, then?"

"Me? I process. I meditate. I feel through it to some kind of meaning or lesson or ultimate truth of life and the cosmic experience or something."

"You also stay and fight," Jim said stubbornly. "You could have left me so many times. You could have taken the easy way out. You could have kept the diss public and reaped the rewards. But you didn't. You stuck it out, no matter what pain it brought you."

Blair shrugged. "I did what I thought was right."

"So what's right this time? What do you want to do about your mom?"

Blair was quiet for a long while. When he spoke, it was distant, the words coming from far away inside the vault of his soul.

"I love my mom. Not just because she's my mom, but because she's a good person and she does try her best. All her mistakes are out of love. Even if she weren't my mom, I'd want her in my life sometimes. I like when we tell stories, or when she forgets I'm not a little boy and tries to look out for me. I like being able to meditate with her and talk about what we see. I want all of that."

"But?" Jim urged.

"But it's not just me anymore, is it? I want to have my mom, but I can't risk bringing her in too close. A mistake made out of love can still be fatal. We both know that. And now there's a lot more lives riding on us. Maybe mom would think it was the right thing to do to start a Free The Sentinels campaign in China, but it would get people hurt. And there's absolutely no way she'd keep any of it a secret. She doesn't keep secrets."

"Do you really think she'd be in danger? Or maybe be dangerous to us herself?"

"Don't you?" Blair replied.

Jim couldn't argue that. If Naomi proved true to form even once, she might let the wrong information pass and there was no telling the results. They weren't playing the relatively small stakes of Blair's academic reputation and Jim's anonymity. Now they were caught up in a world of international politics and decades of secrecy and a supervillain all existing in a delicate balance. And even if SELF was strong and the Sentinels who had joined it were stronger, there were still a thousand ways it could all come crashing down – and the cost would be lives.

"But can't you have her, open that door, without letting her into all the secrets and SELF?" Jim asked.

Blair shook his head. "I don't know how. She found my dissertation on my computer because she was curious and she wanted to help. What if she followed one of us to the lodge just to see where we were going? What if somebody let something slip? What if she starts asking about my work? I can't tell her, Jim. I can tell her I'm still your partner, but all the DHS stuff and my SELF office – how do I keep it all from her?"

"We'll find a way, Chief. If that's what you want, we'll find a way."

"There is a way. It's just…hard."

Jim waited.

"I can let Naomi be my friend. I can meet her for coffee and meditate with her and tell stories with her. But I can't let her be my mom again. I can't open the door and let her into the loft – literally or figuratively. I can't let her influence leak into my life. I can't…let myself trust her to be my mom anymore. I have to let her go. For her safety, for ours, for SELF's. Detach with all the love in my heart for all our sakes."

"Detach with love," Jim repeated the phrase.

"But you know what's strange?" The rain had stopped again, and that was too bad because now the water dribbling down his face didn't have as easy an excuse.

"What?" Jim asked as gently as he could.

"Even if I can't let her be my mom, even if I can't let her into my life, even if I have to forgive her but not trust her…even then, I still want to be her son."

Jim felt his heart constrict at the deep ache in those words.

"She's my _mom_. And it doesn't matter that I'm way past the bedwetting stage. I still…I still want my mom. Even if I never trust her again. Isn't that crazy?"

"No, Blair. It isn't." And Jim broke the stalemate between them and wrapped his arms around his Guide and held him tightly.

The rain came and the sea moved and the winds blew gently against the pier and water fell between them. And only Jim knew, his Sentinel senses keener even than Blair's ability to tell the difference anymore, which drops of water were Blair's tears and which were nature's. So Jim held on, and Blair burrowed into the only permanence he had left, and they waited for the storm to pass.


End file.
